Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

I just saw a guy in a cowboy hat walking down the street carrying a radiator. I can tell you what: I'm about sick of this cold weather. Because I bet if it were warmer out, he wouldn't have been wearing the hat.

That's officially it: snowflakes! This is just wrong. I mean, this is Philadelphia. I'd expect this from the rural Central Pennsylvania town where I grew up, where it's frozen until July. But this is a whole other weather system.

Ridiculous.

Who's in charge of the weather any more? I think we should fire them, get somebody new in there, somebody who knows what they're doing. Damn!

Random thoughts, random thoughts. I can't forgive myself sometimes for stupid little things I say or do. They're writ so large in my brain that I remember them with mortifying embarrassment.

Like, for example, the time I was in kindergarten and was waiting after school for my mom to pick me up. She was late that day, and my teacher was outside waiting with me. She asked me what kind of car my mom drove. Remembering that it started with a "V," I said a Volkswagen. Finally, the mustard yellow car showed up. I got in. As we were pulling away, I saw on the dashboard the name of the car. I asked mom what it said, and "Volvo" was her reply.

I felt terrible, because even though I was only 5 years old, I imagined the teacher must have been really worried when she saw me getting into what, for all she knew, was the wrong car. Even though I showed up at school safely the next day, and even though the teacher never said a word about it, I never stopped feeling guilty about the possibility that for a brief moment I might have worried her.

And then there's the fact that, when I meet people, I get so excited sometimes that I can't stop rambling off things about myself. Later on they bring them up. "I told you I had a 'tail' hairstyle in the '80s? Gee, I don't remember that... And I told you about my Mork & Mindy suspenders? What was I thinking? "

There are all sorts of little things about ourselves, habits we have, thoughts that go through our head, that we would prefer no one ever knows. When you live alone, I think you have more such things. For example, I've had the strangest snacks since living alone: a spoonful of parmesan cheese, a slice of bread with mayonnaise on it. Chocolate syrup squeezed straight into the mouth. Forget I said all that.

You can do anything when you work at home. I used to think I could sit around in my pajamas all day but then realized that will be the very day the UPS package you'd been waiting for arrives, and you have to change before answering it. I mean, you don't want to open up the door in a flannel nightie. People might get ideas.

My dog is doing better now that she's a few days into the treatment for her Lyme Disease. If I didn't know any better, I wouldn't know she'd ever been sick. She is enthusiastically taking walks with me. She's sleeping and resting up but definitely has more energy. She's in a much better mood and is eating and drinking again. So it looks like we've passed the worst part of it. However, her course of treatment involves more than a month of medication. She doesn't mind because I'm administering her medication with cheese. If she knew this was how she got her twice daily cheese snacks, she'd probably be trying to get sick.

I've picked up a slight cold, which isn't surprising given this monstrous weather. There is now sleet falling. Wrong! This is just wrong!

I just saw Bringing Down the House and there was a little 12-year-old girl watching it and saying "Eww!" every time Steve Martin kissed somebody. I don't know if it was kissing in general or Steve Martin in particular that she disliked.

I was bummed out yesterday morning because I found out NBC journalist David Bloom died in Iraq of a pulmonary embolism, which can be caused by dehydration (i.e. being in the desert) and by long periods of inactivity (i.e. riding around in a tank). The official line is that it's "not combat related." It is, however, definitely related to the conditions in Iraq, and the reason he was there was to cover the combat. I don't know quite what else to say about it except that I was first saddened and then angered at yet one more senseless loss of life from this horrible conflict. Soon we'll have enough coalition and journalist deaths to surpass the deaths in the Great White inferno in Rhode Island.

Yesterday, I caught some little girls stealing daffodils from a neighbor's garden. I confronted them. "Didn't your mama tell you not to steal people's flowers?" I asked. "They work hard on that garden." The girls looked confused and upset, like they might cry. I know they were probably just taken them to their mom and she probably would have said exactly what I did, but seeing as how I walked by and saw it happening, I thought it was best to speak up. Besides, I always wanted to be the cranky old neighbor lady telling kids not to do stuff.

The neighbor across the street was out watering his garden at the time. He saw the whole thing and didn't say anything. Then again, the whole time I've lived in this neighborhood, I've only heard him say a handful of words, even to his family. Maybe they have telepathy.

Maybe he figured it wasn't his business because it wasn't his garden. Maybe that's also why he keeps a small dog in his yard, who frightens mine. The dog hides in the yard so that you think he's not there, and when you pass by, he runs out and starts barking fiercely. My dog jumps out of her skin. The other dog laughs.

The sleet is turning to snow flakes, so we're turning home. The confused daffodils, all over the neighborhood, have no way to run. But I guess life doesn't always make sense, and you can't control the things that happen. We have two choices: one is to regret everything we've ever done. The other is to learn from it.

I can say one thing: I never again mistook a Volvo for a Volkswagen.

Moral:
Those who don't learn from their mistakes are doomed to torture themselves with the memory of them.

Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson

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